A crew racing a J/105 on the Chesapeake Bay, every person working.

Impact Sailing Foundation

Opening Doors to Sailing and Opportunity

Connecting people to life-changing opportunities through sailing.

We create free pathways into sailing for people who otherwise wouldn’t have a way in — from a first sail to racing, offshore sailing, skills, personal growth, careers, and whatever comes next.

Help build the pathway Get involved

We build the pathway.

Boats, coaches, crews, and races are tools. The thing we create is the route from a first day on the water to wherever a person wants to take it.

  1. 1First connection
  2. 2First sail
  3. 3Crew
  4. 4Racing
  5. 5Offshore
  6. 6Skills
  7. 7Careers and opportunity

We create the opportunity. You decide how far you take it. There is no predetermined ceiling. Someone may discover a new passion. Someone else may become a racer, a captain, a boatbuilder, a marine professional, or chase the highest levels of the sport. Where they go is up to them.

Aerial view of Annapolis harbor at sunset.

One of the great sailing harbors in the world. And for most people, no way onto it. Annapolis, Maryland

The boats are here. The pathways aren’t.

No boat.
No club.
No money.
No connection.

Annapolis is one of the sailing capitals of the world. Being surrounded by sailboats doesn’t mean you have a way onto one. Getting in depends on owning a boat, belonging to a club, or knowing someone who does — and most people have none of the three.

Talent and ambition are everywhere. Opportunity isn’t. That is an access problem, not a charity problem — and access problems can be solved.

Grants, scholarships, and special requests.

Sometimes the thing standing between someone and the water is small and specific: an entry fee, a set of foul-weather gear, a course fee, a ride to the boat. Impact Sailing takes requests from community members and programs, and puts money against the ones that open a door.

Opportunity grants

Regatta entries, travel to an event, safety gear, a seat on a boat, or the equipment a sailor needs to keep going.

Training scholarships

Certifications and courses — US Sailing, Safety at Sea, First Aid, and the path toward a Coast Guard captain’s license.

Program support

For community sailing programs and organizations working on the same problem: boats, coaching, guidance, and connections.

Special requests

If it gets someone on the water and it isn’t on this list, tell us anyway. Ask.

Requests are reviewed as they come in and funded as our own funding allows. Guidance, introductions, and a straight answer are free either way.

A race boat under a blue spinnaker, crew on deck.

Everyone on this boat has a job. That is the point.

A full crew hiking on the rail of a J/105 on a Wednesday night.
Crew Connect Racing, Wednesday night, Annapolis.

Our flagship program

Crew Connect Racing

The program we run ourselves, and the proof the model works: a free community racing team for kids and adults from Annapolis and Baltimore. Participants pay nothing, and they don’t ride along — they are the crew.

Real racing

Weeknight series, Bay distance races, and one offshore race a year, with community sailors in every position on the boat.

Coached, year-round

Boat-work nights, classroom sessions, training sails, and first sails for people who have never been on the water.

Skills that travel

Rigging, marine electrical and diesel systems, composites, sail care, navigation, safety at sea, and certifications.

A next step for anyone who wants one

Paid crewing, deliveries, sailmaking, marine trades, and the path to a captain’s license.

Full program details

Why now

We’ve reached the point where growth depends on the platform.

Forty-five people are sailing with us, and more ask every week. Every one of them is on a borrowed seat. The interest isn’t the problem — the bottleneck is the platform, and what happens next depends on the people who fund it.

The platform

An offshore-capable program boat the Foundation owns, so the team stops depending on borrowed seats. The first thing we’re raising for.

Shorthanded and ocean training

Small, purpose-built boats — the Mini 6.50 class — that teach the whole job: trim, navigation, weather, self-sufficiency. Learn small, learn completely, go offshore.

Campaigns under the flag

Annapolis to Newport, Bermuda, and beyond, crewed by people who came through the pathway.

More seats, every season

Every milestone funded unlocks more first sails, more coaches, and more places on the boat.

Help build the pathway

From the founder

Why this exists.

I found sailing by accident. It changed my life. I’ve spent the last several years helping other people find it. Now I’ve reached the point where the demand is bigger than the platforms I have available, and I want to build a permanent platform that gives people a pathway as far into sailing as their ability and ambition can take them.

I didn’t grow up sailing. No family boat, no club, nobody in the sport. I didn’t know college sailing existed.

Then I walked past a table, wrote my name on a list, and two weeks later I was on a race boat. That one connection led to the College of Charleston offshore team, an Annapolis-to-Newport win, a Coast Guard captain’s license, and a life built around the water.

The opportunity was always there. The pathway was hidden.

I was lucky enough to find sailing. It changed my life. Impact Sailing exists so someone else doesn’t have to be lucky to find it.

Shane Kilberg on the College of Charleston sailing team.
Shane Kilberg, College of Charleston sailing team.

Stay with the mission.

We’ll send occasional updates — new sailors on the water, race results, what your support built. No noise.

Already on the water.

45sailors already crewing with us
50+participants in the first funded season
40+free program days a year
$0to take part
“I didn’t have a boat, and I didn’t have a club. I showed up, did the work, and there was a place for me.”Mark, 17, Eastport — walked onto the docks on a Wednesday night and asked a crew if he could come. He’s raced every week since.
Mark racing on a J/105 on a Wednesday night.

Every participant is counted, every step of progression tracked, and the results reported to the people who fund it. As the program grows, so does what we can measure: who kept sailing, who raced, who went offshore, who earned a certification, who found work on the water.

Crew Connect sailors aboard a boat at the dock at sunset in Annapolis.

Forty-five people who didn’t have a boat, a club, or a way in. Crew Connect sailors, Annapolis.

Where can sailing take someone?

Confidence
Teamwork
Leadership
Discipline
Technical skill
Responsibility
Competition
Belonging

These aren’t classroom lessons. They come from handling sails in a breeze, navigating, fixing what breaks, making decisions with a crew depending on you, and getting a boat around a course. For some it becomes a sport. For others, a career. For many, a community and a different way of seeing themselves.

And it is the original clean-energy sport: every mile we race is powered by wind alone, on a Bay our participants learn to know and protect.

A college sailing team hiking hard on a Melges 24 in a breeze.
Where it can lead: college sailing, and everything past it.

A local beginning. A bigger ambition.

Today, Impact is building one pathway in Annapolis. The long-term goal is to build and fund those pathways wherever people are kept out of sailing because they never had the opportunity or the connection to get in.

Impact Sailing Foundation is a Maryland nonprofit corporation, incorporated in September 2026, with its 501(c)(3) application pending. Until that approval, the program operates in sponsorship with Spectrum Sailing, a 501(c)(3) that runs free sailing camps for autistic kids and adults. The founding board is forming now.

Founder: Captain Shane Kilberg — USCG 100-Ton Master, College of Charleston offshore team, Annapolis-to-Newport winner.

A race boat heeled and driving offshore, bow wave breaking.
Where the pathway leads.
A sailboat at sunset on the Chesapeake.

We create the opportunity. You decide how far you take it.

Help build the pathway.

The interest isn’t the problem. The bottleneck is the platform. Every gift puts someone on the water — a first sail, a season, or the boat that lets the program grow beyond borrowed seats. We report not only what we spent, but what happened because of it.

Donate online Discuss a larger gift
Online

Give at spectrumsailing.org/support/donate and write Crew Connect Racing in the comment box. That note is what directs the gift to our program.

By check

Payable to Spectrum Sailing, memo line Crew Connect Racing. Mail to Spectrum Sailing, PO Box 1111, Isle of Palms, SC 29451. No processing fee.

Tax deductibility

Gifts are received by Spectrum Sailing, a registered 501(c)(3), which issues your receipt. Many employers match charitable gifts — it’s worth asking.

Other ways in

Join as crew. Bring your boat and your time. Introduce us to someone who should know. Call 443-615-4413.

Open the door.

You don’t have to know where the pathway leads. You just have to help someone get on it.

Support Impact Sailing Get involved